Bath Quilters

I actually made it to my first Bath Quilters talk tonight (had a bit of a nightmare when I tried to go to this month's sewing group, realised I was a week early, decided to go and have a look at a flat my friend recommended and then got very lost after driving down the world's twistiest downhill road and took well over an hour to do what, had I found the correct route, should be twenty minute journey).


It was definitely worth going tonight, the talk was quite unpromisingly entitled "Management Quilts" but it was fantastic.  The speaker was Ann Rippin who is an academic from the University of Bristol specialising in Management and Economics.  Her quilts were all inspired by companies she had researched and had a phenomenal amount of work and many, many hours of thought in them.  I didn't take any photos but if you want to visit her blog it's www.annjrippin.wordpress.com. 

A Cultural Weekend

My friend and I headed up to Sheffield (Yorkshire) last weekend, the original plan was to catch up and go to watch a gig but we also managed to sample a wide range of cultural activities on offer in the area.  


Our first afternoon was spent in the large shopping mall that is Meadowhall, two enjoyable meals were eaten (for anyone that is interested the Handmade Burger Company do a surprisingly good range of vegetarian burgers and their sides are massive), plenty of shopping bags were carried around and on the whole we shopped till we dropped.


Saturday started off more refined with a quick visit to Bakewell for some original Bakewell puddings from Bloomers and a bottle of the Sheffield delicacy - Henderson's Relish.  And these were nothing like your icing with a cherry on top cherry bakewells, but were still absolutely delicious. (Unfortunately at this point in the day I was yet to break out my camera).


And then we drove on to Chatsworth House which was simply stunning even on an overcast day.  

The amazing library

A squirting willow (the original was from the 1600s)

I really want to visit this house again with my fancy camera.

And then in the evening we headed off to the highlight of the evening the Blink 182 concert with support from the All American Rejects.

 (Sorry photos from a mobile at full zoom)

A slightly less hectic day on Monday, a lazy morning followed by a slow drive home via an exhibition of ice age artefacts from Cresswell Crags

Definitely a lot packed into one weekend and my excuse for not having done any crafting this weekend!

I've created a monster!

I have finally finished the Batik Wave quilt top and I think it's beautiful.  I think I've also decided how to quilt it, just need to figure out how to mark quilting lines on a black quilt - blue washable marker is not going to cut it here.  Now follows the mammoth task of basting this quilt.


And to give you an idea how large a task that is...

...the bed modelling the quilt is 4 ft wide, the quilt drops to the floor on both sides; if my memory is right this quilt is 96 inches square! I have a tendency to make oversize quilts but I think this may be too much even for me.